Joseph Coelho was the Waterstones Children’s Laureate 2022–2024, and is an award-winning poet, playwright and writer. In 2024 he won the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing for The Boy Lost in the Maze and was awarded an OBE for his services to the arts, to children’s reading and to literature. His first poetry collection, Werewolf Club Rules!, , won the CLPE Children's Poetry Award in 2015, and he has been writing and performing ever since. His picture books include If All the World Were... illustrated by Allison Colpoys and the Luna Loves... series illustrated by Fiona Lumbers. His poetry books for children include Overheard in a Tower Block illustrated by Kate Milner, A Year of Nature Poems illustrated by Kelly Louise Judd, and his novel in verse, The Girl Who Became a Tree. Originally from London, he now lives in Edinburgh. Follow him on X as @JosephACoelho and on Instagram as @josephcoelhoauthor.Freya Hartas is an award-winning illustrator of children's books. She illustrated Dark Lord: Teenage Years which won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and she won the Lemniscaat Illustration Award for her first standalone picture book, Little Kong. She also illustrated the Isle of Misfits series and Frankie Frog and the Throaty Croakers. She is the illustrator of the first story in the Fairy Tales Gone Bad series, Zombierella, written by Joseph Coelho. Find her online at freyahartas.co.uk, and on Twitter and Instagram as @FreyaHartas.
